Distinct player characters, their race and class, will be a focal point next year. That's not to say they aren't important -- they most certainly are -- they're essential. But from a development planning standpoing, our focus right now is on building the world and implementing gameplay.

Distinct player characters, their race and class, will be a focal point next year. That's not to say they aren't important -- they most certainly are -- they're essential. But from a development planning standpoing, our focus right now is on building the world and implementing gameplay.

Quick question: How can you build a world when you don't have all the classes and their abilities fleshed out? Remember that players will theorycraft, parse and otherwise apply positioning, spells, abilities and skills in ways that the developers never imagined. Everything takes place on the world stage, but what if, after you toss in the actors and their spells/abilities you realize the stage is all wrong? How many times in EQ1 history did the developers come down on the players for using the world design as a tool? Might you find out that a raid idea cannot be implemented because the stage doesn't work for that event? How would you fix that?

Trolls!!! I love the Troll race and limited classes because of their limited Int and Wis Please make a Troll race. ALL the games now days concentrate on Boobs, a Boob slider and Boob physics. I think that's great but with all the Beauty classes I would love a Beast class other than Ogre. I see Ogres all the time in real life when I have to go to Walmart. Now Trolls, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Lizards, Sarnak and other uglies make me different than all the pretty folks.

While I am sure that race will impact class... what will be the impact of forming guilds? Will there be a limitations to what races can be in a guild together due to lore? As a leader in a very large gaming organization it becomes hard to get everyone to willingly choose certain races so we can all be under the same guild tag. And while I am bringing that up will there be a maximum guild size that will be implimented?

While I am sure that race will impact class... what will be the impact of forming guilds? Will there be a limitations to what races can be in a guild together due to lore? As a leader in a very large gaming organization it becomes hard to get everyone to willingly choose certain races so we can all be under the same guild tag. And while I am bringing that up will there be a maximum guild size that will be implimented?

No, we have no intention to restrict races from guilding with each other, I have never even heard of that happening other than in games like World of Warcraft that has two distinct factions that are opposed and Pantheon is nothing like that.

Think of EQ and VG having an awesome baby with lot's of tweaks and fixes to things that didn't work and polish to things that did, and you basically have Pantheon (I may be slightly simplifying things, but you get the general message ;)).

Check out our FAQ for more information on the game and what we intend to achieve with it, plus the game tenets, features, the Pantheon difference and what is Pantheon links on the left side.

The race perks that I would enjoy the most are specific to that race and that race only. For instance, race cloaks or race traits that are earned by doing a long HQ for example. Make it so that not everyone is the same...pretty much. I might be a nerd, but i actually like the fact that certain races can only live in certain housing areas. Baubleshire- ring a bell?

No, we have no intention to restrict races from guilding with each other, I have never even heard of that happening other than in games like World of Warcraft that has two distinct factions that are opposed and Pantheon is nothing like that.

I'm so glad Pantheon won't be splitting up the player base! It's never made sense to me to do this for PVE content. Even if, for example, Humans hate Gnomes that doesn't mean that specific individuals couldn't become friends and adventure together (E.G. groups, raids, guilds, etc)... Allow us the freedom to choose our friends and enemies :)

I really liked the diplomacy aspect of VG, and how race impacted that aspect of the game directly. The various racial ability benefits were neat, but some didn't really do much at all, while others made a difference ... even if the cooldown was a long time.

From what I remember in the last stream, they stated there would be race class restrictions, but had no further information about it yet. I for one am happy about this restriction...for me it seems to bring a little more fun to the game if everything is not the same for every race. This goes for racial bonus and penalties as well...maybe xp penalties as well if the racial bonuses are good rnough. Apologize for any spellings or formating errors...posted from my phone. Thanks. Daloskar

I hope the race class combo helps with uniqueness. I know many people will be out to min/max but I prefer just being unique. That being said I usually play Humans anyway becaseu they look the coolest in all the armor types.

hmm... in EQ (not played VG) there were the starting city class "guilds". Mainly to get the newbe going and this was put in a way of a giving the npc a promise, of a kind, to do their best in the ways of that 'guild". In that regard you're member of 2 guilds already; class guild at home and goal guild of the players. Dark Hour on Solusek Ro in the beginning was a rogue player only guild; that makes 3.I suppose in a context of medieval quilds it's more class and learning at home, in mmo it's more of being member of a type rogue mercenary army and the class npc, in hub like zones (PoK for example) makes up the 3rd.The first would get you taught, the second would get you livelihood and the third would get you (class) standing. A bit like joining chat channels I suppose, but all 3 could hold quests or paths to follow to differentiate (where the 2nd is ofcource where you have fun with other players) ... or do I rant in direction of faction...Anyways, there are options enough for developers to offer a player certain paths to evolve uniqueness (aside always getting blamed for ruining your own lands)

Mechanically, how much will choice of race effect your experience as you level through Terminus? I know from the website so far that only certain races can be certain classes, which suggests that some race/class combos would be too powerful/OP for balance reasons. So, it seems that each race will have great, deep and meaningful racial traits.

Overall, I guess I'm asking, how much will race choice effect your time in game? Are there going to be "perfect" race/class combos? Will some have advantage over others? If I roll a Skar Dire Lord at 1st level, will their lower (according to race write up) stamina later in game turn out to be a poor choice?

When I first started playing EQ, I rolled a DE SK. It seemed great thematically, but it seemed as time in game progressed, going for a high int race didn't seem like the best choice, and by that time I had many, many hours invested in this character. Will there be "poor choice" race/class combos? How careful will we need to be at creation while looking toward end game?

To be honest, I'm ok with there being some trade offs. With the above example, I learned to use my DE SK to focus more on his spells in combat than his melee, and by the mid 50's was debuffing mobs almost as well as a shaman. The trade off is good, but having to do it all over again, I woulda gone ogre or human.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling here, and I look forward to the answers.

Mechanically, how much will choice of race effect your experience as you level through Terminus? I know from the website so far that only certain races can be certain classes, which suggests that some race/class combos would be too powerful/OP for balance reasons. So, it seems that each race will have great, deep and meaningful racial traits.

Overall, I guess I'm asking, how much will race choice effect your time in game? Are there going to be "perfect" race/class combos? Will some have advantage over others? If I roll a Skar Dire Lord at 1st level, will their lower (according to race write up) stamina later in game turn out to be a poor choice?

When I first started playing EQ, I rolled a DE SK. It seemed great thematically, but it seemed as time in game progressed, going for a high int race didn't seem like the best choice, and by that time I had many, many hours invested in this character. Will there be "poor choice" race/class combos? How careful will we need to be at creation while looking toward end game?

To be honest, I'm ok with there being some trade offs. With the above example, I learned to use my DE SK to focus more on his spells in combat than his melee, and by the mid 50's was debuffing mobs almost as well as a shaman. The trade off is good, but having to do it all over again, I woulda gone ogre or human.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling here, and I look forward to the answers.

There will almost certainly be race/class combos that some players consider more optimal than others but that doesn't mean if you aren't playing that combo you can't still be viable. Similar to your DE SK example.

Some people prefer to play more obscure race/class combos because they don't like being the same as everyone else. Or maybe they have a preference toward playing a certain race (or a bias against another race) because of their past gaming history. Some people like to build their characters differently than others...I always like hitpoints on my casters for example. Could be roleplay/backstory reasons. Some people just might like the look of a certain race or prefer to play from the point of view of a tall race...or a short race. There are a lot of reasons why someone might pick a certain race/class combo.

Just because one persons considers combo X to be optimal doesn't mean another person might consider combo Y to be optimal (or that what is considered optimal won't change as the game progresses). There will be different racial abilities so there will always be benefits of choosing a specific race over another.

The thing that might effect your time in Terminus most based on race is your starting location.

Also...in early EQ the best SK I knew of was a DE. Very well geared. Prior to lvl cap and raiding you might have questioned your choice but that large mana pool was optimal from a non tank/raiding perspective after your gear made up for any other shortcomings (though maybe the erudite sks mana pool was even larger?). Everyone hit the softcap for main stats around Luclin if not before anyway.